Brattleboro Retreat marks its 175th anniversary

(Host)
This weekend, the Brattleboro Retreat marks its 175th anniversary.

And
as VPR's Lynne McCrea reports, since its beginning, the Retreat has been
progressive in its treatment of people who need psychiatric care.

(McCrea) Up until 1893, the Brattleboro Retreat was
called the Vermont Asylum for the Insane.

It
was founded by Anna Hunt Marsh, who set aside money in her will to establish
the facility.

Dr.
Rob Simpson is the president and CEO of the Retreat today. He says Anna Hunt Marsh was very concerned
about the treatment of the mentally ill.

(Simpson) In 1834, we were not very
sophisticated about the mentally ill. We imagined that they were possessed by
demons, or that they were very bad people. And we didn't do always very nice
things to them. So her whole goal, in her mind, was to chart the future. She
really wanted to change the way mentally ill were treated. And she liked the
concept of moral treatment. That people deserved to be treated with dignity.

(McCrea)
Just this year, the Retreat launched two
new treatment programs. One is for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
patients.

Simpson
says the program offers many of the same services as those for heterosexual
patients. But he says it also recognizes ‘the interplay of gender, stigma and
society with other psychiatric issues'".

(Simpson) "So this gives a person a
chance who has felt concern about the impact of their gender choice in society
- whether they may have hidden it, may have been ostracized by it to have a
chance to say ‘this has really affected me - this has made my depression worse.
This has made my ability to recover from my bipolar disorder much more complex'.
So that's why we're doing this program."

(McCrea) A second program is specifically targeted for
people in uniform -firefighters, police, EMTs, and corrections officers. Simpson says they have a higher than
average incidence of depression and addiction than general society.

Dr.
Simpson says it's important that generalized psychiatric services continue to remain
available, as well as the kinds of specialized treatment programs that
Brattleboro Retreat offers.